NATCHEZ — Natchez and Adams County will soon be looking for a new chairman to head up the Natchez-Adams County Recreation Commission after the current chairman gave notice Tuesday of his intent to step down from the position effective March 19.

Tate Hobdy publicly announced that he would be resigning as Chairman of the Natchez-Adams County Recreation Commission during Tuesday’s finance committee meeting with the Natchez Mayor and Board of Aldermen.

In a resignation letter he submitted to the board Tuesday, Hobdy stated he would be leaving after his final board meeting on March 19 to focus on his family and business but would continue to be an active member of the Natchez community and would be available as a resource to the recreation commission.

Hobdy, who works as the vice president of Stephens & Hobdy Insurance on Main Street, has been a volunteer chairman for the recreation commission since 2009 when the county, city and school boards appointed its first members, he said.

For the past decade, Hobdy has helped oversee the recruitment of the YMCA and the construction of a soccer field and community pool near Natchez High School that would hopefully be a launching point for a full-blown recreational complex, Hobdy said.

More recently, Hobdy said, the commission sought bids for an outdoor bodyweight circuit training facility to be constructed near the pool, and he said the board would continue to improve the baseball fields in Duncan Park.

“I’ve been on this board for 10 years,” Hobdy said “and I feel like we’ve gotten a lot done. I have some other things in my personal and business life that I want to pursue and feel like it’s about time for me to step down.”

Hobdy said improvements to the recreational amenities offered in Adams County could, perhaps, be made faster with a change in leadership.

“At some point, you need a change in leadership, no matter what the case is,” he said. “Maybe with a new person’s energy … some new changes can happen more quickly.”

Hobdy said the responsibility to appoint a new chairman would fall on the Board of Aldermen.

“It’s the city’s job to appoint someone new,” Hobdy said. “I hope we can find a couple of good candidates who’ve already been involved in some form or another. … I don’t have anyone that said they absolutely would do it, but I’ve talked to a few who were interested.”